


Fire Berries

by misura



Category: Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, Community: smallfandomfest, Fade to Black, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Slivko manages to get himself not-quite-poisoned.





	Fire Berries

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: _Conrad/Mason/Slivko, island aphrodisiacs made them do it_

Conrad had registered the presence of the bush of berries, of course. Where he'd failed was in not allowing for human curiosity coupled with the boredom of military rations.

Thus, by the time he heard Slivko say, "Hey, berries," he was about half a second too late to respond.

 

"I'm fine," Slivko insisted. As far as Conrad could determine there was nothing wrong with him - at least, nothing that directly resulted from snacking on unfamiliar flora.

Of course, few poisons acted instantly. Animals might lack human intelligence, but even the dumbest beast would shy away from a bush surrounded by bones and corpses. It might be hours before any symptoms showed.

Conrad sighed. Mason had walked over to the bush. Her, at least, he trusted to act responsibly.

His mistake, as it turned out.

"Hey," she said. "I'm not eating them, all right? Only collecting a couple. Then, when it turns out they're safe to eat, well. I'll share." She smiled. "If nothing else, they smell pretty nice."

Conrad sighed. "Let's just go."

 

"Fire berries," Hank said, about half a klick later. Slivko was still vertical and showing no unusual signs of physical discomfort. "That's what the Iwi call 'em."

Mason frowned. "Fire berries? That doesn't sound good."

"Won't eat 'em, won't dry 'em, won't even make jam out of 'em. Not that there's anything to put jam on around here, so I guess that makes sense. Still."

"Guys, I feel fine, all right?" Slivko said.

"You're sweating," Conrad pointed out. The ugly truth was that, well, what were they going to do if Slivko did turn out to have managed to poison himself? They still needed to make it to the exfil point in time. That was where the doctors were - not that Conrad would put much hope in their ability to deal with an unfamiliar poison.

"We're all sweating," Mason said. _Not_ helping.

"They say it burns a man right up," Hank said. "From the inside out. Whoosh."

Conrad shot him a look.

" 'course, they say a lot of things," Hank added. "Could be they're just plain wrong about this one. I mean, what would they know? They've only been living on this island for more time than any of us have been alive."

"Maybe they just call 'em that because of the color," Slivko said.

"Sure." Hank shook his head, then nodded. "I mean, anything's possible, right? Look at me."

 

By nightfall, nothing too bad had happened. Conrad supposed he should feel relieved, but he mostly felt tense. He _liked_ Slivko. He preferred to think he was a decent enough human being that he would worry equally about any member of their little group.

"Hey," Mason said. "Want a bedtime snack?"

Conrad mustered up a smile. "Funny."

She shrugged. "He looks fine. And, I mean, you heard Marlow. If the Iwi never eat those berries, how would they know what they do? Maybe they're perfectly harmless."

"Hm. Did you hear the part where he said they do a lot of talking?" 

"So what's the plan?"

"Same as it's always been," Conrad said. "Make it out of here alive. Short-term, I think someone should keep an eye on Slivko tonight. Just in case."

"I can do that."

"You take the first watch, I'll take the second," Conrad corrected.

 

"I'm okay, you know," Slivko said. "I mean, they tasted fine. Not bitter or anything."

"If you felt anything other than fine, would you tell me?" Conrad had served with British special forces; he knew what the honest answer of any of his ex-colleagues would have been.

"Sure," Slivko said.

"Really." Conrad didn't bother making it a question.

"Man, what do I have to do to convince you? I'm fine," Slivko insisted. "Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die. Scout's honor."

"No elevated body temperature? No sudden urges to do something unusually stupid?"

"Hey," Slivko said. "That's totally unfair. I mean, so what if I'm attracted to guys _and_ girls? That doesn't mean I've been poisoned or something. Far as I can see, it just means I'm screwed twice over - and not even in the fun, dirty kind of way."

Conrad closed his eyes. "Fire berries." Kind of obvious, in hindsight, up to and including the bit where the Iwi avoided them like the plague.

"What?" Slivko sounded confused.

"The good news is, you're not going to die. Probably." Conrad considered his options. Letting Slivko deal with the thing by himself - possible, but potentially time-consuming, and it might leave Slivko too drained to move under his own power. That left _not_ letting Slivko deal with the thing by himself.

"All right," Slivko said. "Great." And then, because he was a soldier: "So what's the bad news?"

 

"Listen, you don't have to do this," Conrad said.

For someone who'd just been told they might need to have sex with someone in order to save their lives, Mason looked downright cheerful. Conrad wondered if mere proximity to the berries was enough to influence a person's actions - it would explain a couple of things.

"Don't see a lot of other women around," Mason said.

Conrad said nothing, let her work it out for herself. She'd been embedded for two years and she was neither stupid nor unobservant; she'd get there.

"Oh," she said. "And you're - "

"Unaffected, but willing to serve." Conrad grimaced. "Sorry, that sounded a little ... "

Mason grinned. "You like him."

Well. She'd certainly come around quickly. Not that Conrad would have expected her to be prejudiced about such things: nobody who'd seen up close what war did to people would be as small-minded as that. War forced a man to re-examine everything he thought he knew about himself, all the things he'd always taken for granted. 

"I like both of you," Conrad said. Plus, _if_ Mason was affected as well, it would be much more effective to get it out of her system right now as well.

"Aw," Mason said. "I like both of you, too."

Tomorrow, they would all wake up clear-headed and they'd see where things went from there.

Probably downhill, if events thus far were any indication.


End file.
